Barbarossa Revisited: Strategy and Ideology in the East 

by Jurgen Forster

It is importantt o emphasizet he developments of recenth istoriographical research with respectt o the relationshipb etweenH itler and his militaryc ommanders. In the period immediately following the Second World War, historians tended to separate the SupremeC ommanderf rom the Wehrmacht,su ggestingt hat the militaryl eader-ship saw its role as purelyp rofessional,w ith no ideologicalc omponent.T his was not the case.T he linkageb etweens trategya nd massm urderin the warp olicyo f the Third Reich "makes it impossible to posit a clean war, planned and fought by German sol-diers who somehowr emainedi nsulatedf rom their politicall eadership"1In fact, the militaryc ommandersw erec aughtu p in the ideologicalc haractero f the conflict, and involvedi n its implementationa s willingp articipantsa nd partnerso f the Fiihrer. To say that the Wehrmacht was responsiblef or manyc rimesi n the SovietU nion and Yu-goslavia is not to say that every German soldier was a criminal or was equally guilty of the crimesp erpetratedin the name of the regime. Hitler was not a disciple of Carl von Clausewitz. The Fiihrer did not view war as a mere" continuationo f political activityb y other means,"b ut as the higheste x-pression of the life force of a people. Fighting was a way of life, and war the necessary tool in the hands of the responsible statesman to acquire the sufficient living space by whicht he nation'sf uturew ouldb e secured:r acially;e conomically;a nd militarily. Since racial survival would lead peoples to war, Hitler had pointed out to the army field commanderso n 10F ebruary1 939,t he next Europeanc onflict wouldb e "purely a waro f Weltanschauungen, that is, totally a people'sw ar,a racialw ar."

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